VC made Sub machine gun at NZ Army Museum

[Anderson]

Here's an odd war trophy the NZ Army brought back from Vietnam, now on display at the NZ Army Museum.

The artefact has the look of a Thompson Sub Machine Gun (SMG) but made locally by the Viet Cong (VC) throughout South Vietnam in jungle work shops during the Vietnam war. It is designed to fire the American .30 cal M1/M2 Carbine round in theory, but in practice would have been used by local VC more as an intimidation device to opportunistically ambush small Army of Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) patrols, to then capture their more sophisticated and safe weapons. It would take a brave person to attempt to fire one of these jungle work shop produced weapons.